very much pleased. "I shot
one the other day same way, when he was feedin' off a dead horse. Now
thet's a fine skin. Shore you cut through once or twice. But he's only
half lofer, the other half in plain coyote. Thet accounts fer his
feedin' on dead meat."

My naturalist host and my scientific friend both remarked somewhat
grumpily that I seemed to get the best of all the good things. I might
have retaliated that I certainly had gotten the worst of all the bad
jokes; but, being generously happy over my prize, merely remarked: "If
you want fame or wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them."

Five o'clock supper left a good margin of day, in which my thoughts
reverted to the canyon. I watched the purple shadows stealing out of
their caverns and rolling up about the base of the mesas. Jones came
over to where I stood, and I persuaded him to walk with me along the
rim wall. Twilight had stealthily advanced when we reached the Singing
Cliffs, and we did not go out upon my promontory, but chose a more
comfortable one nearer the wall.

The night breeze had not sprung up yet, so the music of the cliffs was
hushed.

"You cannot accept the theory of erosion to account for this chasm?" I
asked my companion, referring to a former conversation.

"I can for this part of it. But what stumps me is the mountain range
three thousand feet high, crossing the desert and the canyon just above
where we crossed the river. How did the river cut through that without
the help of a split or earthquake?"

"I'll admit that is a poser to me as well as to you. But I suppose
Wallace could explain it as erosion. He claims this whole western
country was once under water, except the tips of the Sierra Nevada
mountains. There came an uplift of the earth's crust, and the great
inland sea began to run out, presumably by way of the Colorado. In so
doing it cut out the upper canyon, this gorge eighteen miles wide. Then
came a second uplift, giving the river a much greater impetus toward
the sea, which cut out the second, or marble canyon. Now as to the
mountain range crossing the canyon at right angles. It must have come
with the second uplift. If so, did it dam the river back into another
inland sea, and then wear down into that red perpendicular gorge we
remember so well? Or was there a great break in the fold of granite,
which let the river continue on its way? Or was there, at that
particular point, a softer stone, like this limestone here, which